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Google, You Auto-Complete Me

by Mark WilsonAug 6, 20186 minutes

I don’t liketo say “hi.” I’m a “hey” person. But more and more, I find myself greeting friends and colleagues with a “hi” on email. Why? Because Google suggests that I do. In May, Gmail introduced a new “Smart Compose” feature that uses auto-complete technology to predict my next words in gray. I accept them simply by hitting TAB.

Words matter to me. I am a professional writer, after all. But then Gmail made it tantalizingly easy to say “hi” instead of “hey,” and Google’s prediction, albeit wrong at first, became self-fulfilling. It wasn’t until two weeks after I began using Smart Compose that I realized I had handed over a small part of my identity to an algorithm.

This sort of predictive technology is everywhere: Amazon suggests products aligned with your shopping history. Apple provides a special menu for the iOS apps you’re most likely to open next. Spotify tailors playlists to your musical tastes. And Facebook literally chooses the stories from